Having drifted back and forth a few times on the US withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, President Trump seemed solid on leaving last week, but facing growing opposition from the Senate now shows signs of backtracking once again.

Previously talking up how the wars in Afghanistan and Syria can’t last forever, Trump is now saying he wants a “smaller number” of troops to stay in Afghanistan, despite the Taliban already making it clear that was a non-starter for the peace deal.

In Syria, Trump is now focused on the idea that the pullout can only happen after assuring that “Israel is protected,” which is as close to a recipe for permanent warfare as one can get. Israeli officials have made clear they want the war to be about Iran, not ISIS.

And that seems to be he case in Iraq, as well, where President Trump is now saying US troops will remain, seemingly forever, to “watch Iran,” and make sure they don’t “do nuclear weapons or other things.”

The US Senate Democrats and Republicans' vote against withdrawing troops from Syria and drawing down the American hold on Afghanistan is evidence that there's really only one political party, and that's the war party, anti-war activist and journalist Cindy Sheehan told Sputnik.

In a rebuke of President Donald Trump, the Republican-led US Senate advanced largely symbolic legislation on Thursday opposing plans for any abrupt withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan.

The Senate voted 68-23 in favor of a non-binding amendment, drafted by Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying it was the sense of the Senate that militant groups in both countries continue to pose a “serious threat” to the United States.

The procedural vote to cut off debate meant that the amendment would be added to a broader Middle East security bill likely to come up for a final Senate vote next week.

The amendment acknowledges progress against ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria and Afghanistan but warns that “a precipitous withdrawal” without effective efforts to secure gains could destabilize the region and create a vacuum that could be filled by Iran or Russia.

Manichaean Cold War myopia and ludicrous Russiagate allegations have produced one of the worst periods of American “geopolitical” thinking in recent decades. Consider President Trump’s recently announced withdrawals of US forces from Syria and Afghanistan. Instead of applauding these long-overdue steps, the bipartisan US political-media establishment has denounced them as “Trump’s gifts to Putin.”

But why would Russian President Putin want to be without the United States as an ally in the fight against terrorists in these two countries, which Moscow has long regarded as its geopolitical backyard?

In Syria, where, as Putin has repeatedly warned, thousands of jihadists with Russian passports have appeared and vowed, if they take Damascus, to return to Russia and wage the same war there?

In a surprising vote Thursday, the Senate voted 68-23 to pass a resolution from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) expressing opposition to President Trump’s plan to withdraw US troops from Syria, and expressing opposition to any theoretical pullout from Afghanistan that might result from a negotiated deal to end that war.

The non-binding resolution was passed with overwhelming support from the Republican majority, setting them squarely against parts of President Trump’s foreign policy. A number of Democrats who voted against it expressed concern that it was tantamount to a vote advocating a state of permanent war.

Which it realistically is. The 2001 authorization for the Afghan War was built around 9/11 and the defeat of al-Qaeda. Neither are hugely relevant issues in 2019 Afghanistan, and a peace treaty being negotiated centers heavily around the Taliban promising to keep al-Qaeda and ISIS out of the country in the future.

Webmaster's Commentary:

As I have stipulated many times before on this blog, just because something is the most ham-fistedly, pig-headedly stupid thing the US government and military can do, is no bet they won't do it.

Staying on in Syria, and continuing the occupation of Afghanistan, are both exceptionally bad choices

Staying in Syria means more than a measure of concern about the US and Russia getting into a military engagement here, as the US presence was neither asked for nor recognised by the Syrian government.

The Iranians are here, but in very small numbers, and have been working with the government to get rid of the US/Western-backed, trained, and funded jihadists.

So at the end of the day, Syrians should be able to make their own self-determination about who stays in power as Syria's government, or who does not.

Lest anyone be tempted to believe that President Trump and other U.S. interventionists are intervening in Venezuela because of some purported concern for the Venezuelan people, let’s examine just a few examples that will bring a dose of reality to the situation. This latest intervention is nothing more than another interventionist power play, one intended to replace one dictatorial regime with another.

Egypt comes to mind. It is ruled by one of the most brutal and tyrannical military dictatorships in the world. The U.S. government loves it, supports it, and partners with it. There is no concern for the Egyptian citizenry, who have to suffer under this brutal tyranny and oppression.

Saudi Arabia also comes to mind. It too is a brutal and tyrannical dictatorship, also a murderous one. The U.S. government loves it too, supports it, and partners with it. There is no concern for Saudi citizens who have to suffer under this brutal tyranny and oppression.

Webmaster's Commentary:

It is never the people of a country the US regime changes who matter; it is always about the money and the resources.

Do you think for one moment, that the US is concerned about the people of Venezuela, rather than its proven oil reserves?!?

The United States, champion of freedom and self-determination, is now in its 18th year of colonial war in Afghanistan. This miserable, stalemated conflict is America’s longest and most shameful war. So far it has cost over $1 trillion and killed no one knows how many Afghans.

This conflict began in 2001 on a lie: namely that Afghanistan was somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the US. These attacks were planned in Europe and the US, not Afghanistan, and apparently conducted (official version) by anti-American Saudi extremists. This writer remains unconvinced by the official versions.

We still don’t know if Osama bin Laden instigated the attacks. He was murdered rather than brought to trial. Dead men tell no tales. However, Mullah Omar, leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement, told my late friend journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave that bin Laden was not involved in 9/11. Who benefited? Certainly not the Afghans. They have been at war for the past 40 years.

A large number of prisoners, all of them senior members of Daesh (also ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group, broke out of a Taliban prison in northwest Afghanistan after US troops helped them escape through a covert operation.

According to Tasnim dispatches, American forces operating in Afghanistan carried out a secret military operation in the northwestern province of Badghis two weeks ago and helped the Daesh inmates escape the prison.

The report added that 40 Daesh ringleaders, all of them foreigners, were transferred by helicopters after American troops raided the prison and killed all its security guards.

A large number of prisoners, all of them senior members of Daesh (also ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group, broke out of a Taliban prison in northwest Afghanistan after US troops helped them escape through a covert operation.

Dramatic news is filtering in from Qatar where the United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad and his delegation were huddled together with the representatives of the Taliban for four consecutive days since Monday. The duration of the talks unmistakably signifies that complex negotiations have taken place. Things are moving almost entirely in the direction I had indicated in my earlier blog US officials converge on Pakistan seeking peace.

Both sides in the US-Taliban peace talks have made concessions to move closer to a draft agreement to end the 17-year Afghan war, Reuters says, reporting on the meeting in Qatar citing sources. According to the draft, foreign forces are expected to leave the country 18 months from the future signing of the deal. The Taliban offered assurances that Afghanistan would not be used by Al-Qaeda and Islamic State to attack the US and its allies. The group would also engage in talks with the Afghan government when the ceasefire is announced. There has been no official comment from the US. The fate of the current Afghan government, which the Taliban doesn’t recognize, is unclear if the US withdraws, a former Pentagon official told RT.

Originally, there were four parties involved in the Afghan conflict which are mainly responsible for the debacle in the Af-Pak region. Firstly, the former Soviet Union which invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Secondly, Pakistan’s security agencies which nurtured the Afghan so-called “mujahideen” (freedom fighters) on the behest of Washington.

Thirdly, Saudi Arabia and the rest of oil-rich Gulf states which generously funded the jihadists to promote their Wahhabi-Salafi ideology. And last but not the least, the Western capitals which funded, provided weapons and internationally legitimized the erstwhile ‘freedom fighters’ to use them against a competing ideology, global communism, which posed a threat to the Western corporate interests all over the world.

Originally, there were four parties involved in the Afghan conflict which are mainly responsible for the debacle in the Af-Pak region. Firstly, the former Soviet Union which invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Secondly, Pakistan’s security agencies which nurtured the Afghan so-called “mujahideen” (freedom fighters) on the behest of Washington.

An ancient Hindu prayer says, ‘Lord Shiva, save us from the claw of the tiger, the fang of the cobra, and the vengeance of the Afghan.’

The United States, champion of freedom and self-determination, is now in its 18th year of colonial war in Afghanistan. This miserable, stalemated conflict is America’s longest and most shameful war. So far it has cost over $1 trillion and killed no one knows how many Afghans.

The United States has confirmed that its envoy met the Taliban in Qatar as Washington seeks to negotiate an end to the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan.

Zalmay Khalilzad, US special representative on Afghan reconciliation, on Tuesday met Taliban representatives in the Qatari capital Doha, the US State Department said.

"We can confirm that Special Representative Khalilzad and an inter-agency team are in Doha today talking with representatives of the Taliban," a State Department spokeswoman said, adding that the talks were taking place over two days.

The Taliban and the US envoys have officially met four times since July, in an attempt to find a negotiated settlement to the war in the embattled country.

However, Wednesdays comments mark the first time the US State Department has confirmed his meetings directly.

The meeting came even though the Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack on Tuesday against an Afghan intelligence base in central Wardak province.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am not entirely certain as to where this process will lead, but I certainly hope that it ultimately leads to a complete withdrawal of US and NATO troops.

17 years on , there is still utterly no metric by which this horriific occupation can be judged "a victory".

Taliban militants killed over 100 members of the Afghan security forces in an attack on a military compound in the central province of Maidan Wardak, Reuters reported citing a source in the military.
“We have information that 126 people have been killed in the explosion inside the military training center,” an official told Reuters. The government said earlier that 12 people had been killed, but declined to comment further.

A Taliban suicide bomber drove a car bomb into the base following a firefight between the militants and security forces, Afghanistan’s Pajhwok News reported. The attack took place shortly after 8am local time on Monday.

Webmaster's Commentary:

How many more good men and women in our military will have to die, before Trump finally gets that this is an insane war, a war where there are no military matrics possible to define as "having won this one"?!?!?

I have long stated that the US and NATO need to leave this country as quickly as safely possible, then negotiate with whatever is left of the government in Kabul for the oil pipeline leases; the rare earth minerals, and rights to the production of opium poppies.

And BTW, the following images of US troops protecting opium poppy crops in Afghanistan, are not photoshopped.

Pakistani officials are reportedly intensifying their efforts to get together US and Taliban negotiators for a new round of peace talks in Afghanistan. They express confidence that they can get the two sides together, but say that any success or failure will depend on the negotiators themselves.

Talks between the two sides were going very well, with talk recently that there would be a deal to establish a new government in Afghanistan which would include Taliban representation. This was part of the reason the US wanted the existing Afghan government to delay their elections.

But in the last couple of weeks, things appear to have soured, as the US has apparently backed away from talk of a pullout, and are now trying to get the Taliban to grant them having “long-term bases” which has the Taliban threatening to withdraw from the talks entirely.

The long life of the Afghan war makes it hard to remember how popular it was when it began. As the fighting began, 80 percent of America supported it. Nobody in Congress except Rep. Barbara Lee (D–Calif.) was prescient enough to vote against the Authorization for Use of Military Force and its open-ended-enough-to-attack-a-dozen-more-countries wording. Not until 2014 did a majority of Americans begin to regret that the war ever started.

Now some polls suggest it's nearly as unpopular as the wildly unpopular ill-fated war in Iraq.

The United States invaded Afghanistan largely to restore the heroin industry and it is now making about $1.5 trillion every year from this business, according to Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American academic and political analyst.

US Army General John Nicholson, the commander of Resolute Support forces and US forces in Afghanistan, on Monday announced that American jets targeted drug producing facilities in Afghanistan for the first time under a new strategy aimed at cutting off Taliban funding.

He said that the air strikes were carried out on Sunday in the southern Helmand province, adding that Taliban militants generate about $200 million per year from poppy cultivation and opium production.

The general said that the US military carried out the raids under a new war strategy for Afghanistan announced by President Donald Trump in August.

Afghanistan will not allow the United States to use its bases in the country to conduct any act of aggression against Iran, says a top Afghan diplomat.

“Relations with neighbors are of special significance to the Afghan government in Kabul. Therefore, we will never allow the US to use its military bases against our neighbors such as Iran and Pakistan,” said Abdul Rahim Sayed Jan, Afghan ambassador to Turkey.

“The presence of US bases in Afghanistan has always been a source of concern for our neighbors, although, in line with the Afghan government’s agreement with the US, Washington can never use these bases against our neighbors,” added the envoy in his address to a conference on Afghanistan in Turkish capital Ankara, Turkish daily Yeni Akit reported on Saturday.

Israel is a colonial settler state, sitting on land that was stolen from the Arab population, which they had been living on for thousands of years. The vast majority of Jews that settled the land in the early 1900's falsely laid claim to Palestine.

Since that injustice (the creation of Israel) the Zionists have continued to try to justify what they have done. The creation of Israel and now its maintenance has been the underling cause of both world wars, events like 9/11, the war of terror, the creation of ISIS, and the current destabilization of the region.

Perhaps the most blatant example of the bankruptcy of conventional wisdom at the Pentagon came from retired General David Petraeus in an interview with PBS reporter Judy Woodruff in June of 2017. Petraeus spoke of a “sustainable, sustained commitment” to Afghanistan and the need for a “generational struggle” with Islamic terrorists who are located there. Comparing Afghanistan to the U.S. commitment to South Korea, he hinted US troops might be there for 60 or more years (though he backtracked on the 60-year figure when challenged by Woodruff).

The Taliban said on Tuesday they had canceled planned peace talks with U.S. officials in Qatar this week over an agenda disagreement.

"Both sides have agreed to not meet in Qatar," senior Taliban members based in Afghanistan told Reuters.

Talks had been planned for two days starting Wednesday in Qatar, senior Taliban members earlier told Reuters. The Taliban had rejected requests from regional powers to allow Afghan officials to take part in the discussion.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The only solution here, ultimately, will have to be a negotiated solution, period, end of discussion.

If anyone else were president, the "liberals" would be celebrating. After all, pulling American soldiers out of a couple of failing, endless wars seems like a "win" for progressives. Heck, if Obama did it there might be a ticker-tape parade down Broadway. And there should be. The intervention in Syria is increasingly aimless, dangerous and lacks an end state. Afghanistan is an unwinnable war – America’s longest – and about to end in outright military defeat. Getting out now and salvaging so much national blood and treasure ought to be a progressive dream. There’s only one problem: Donald Trump. Specifically, that it was Trump who gave the order to begin the troop withdrawals.

Taliban fighters are threatening major oil wells near the northern Afghan city of Sar-e Pul following days of fighting in which dozens of members of the security forces have been killed and wounded, officials and residents said on Friday.

The multitude of policy zigs and zags seems to constitute a case of a president suffering from foreign policy bipolar disorder. Yet a pattern may exist amidst all of the turmoil. Trump’s foreign policy instincts often appear to be a sound and refreshing contrast to the stale conventional wisdom that has led the United States to careen from one interventionist debacle to another over the past quarter-century. (His early hostile stance toward North Korea and his policy toward Iran at all times are the major exceptions to sound instincts.) But time and again Trump has allowed his advisers to talk him out of his initial (usually correct) positions. That’s not surprising. The president is not an avid reader about foreign policy (or apparently anything else), and his knowledge base is alarmingly shallow. That deficiency gives policy advisers an exceptional degree of influence.

Taliban officials said yesterday that the movement will not attend planned peace talks with the United States in Saudi Arabia this month and wants them moved to Qatar.

The next round of talks between the Taliban and the US are the fourth in a series aimed at ending the 17-year war in Afghanistan. The talks will address the withdrawal of foreign troops and a possible ceasefire in 2019.

The movement’s leaders have rejected an offer from the Afghan government for direct talks despite mounting international pressure to involve the Western-backed government in the discussions.

“We are supposed to meet US officials in Riyadh next week and resume the unfinished peace process held in Abu Dhabi last month,” a senior Taliban member told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“The problem is that Saudi Arabia and the UAE wanted us to meet with the Afghan government delegation, which we cannot do for the time being, and therefore we canceled the meeting in Saudi Arabia,” he added.

Webmaster's Commentary:

So, finally, there may be a way for the stalemate in Afghanistan to end, and US/NATO troops can go home?!?

On top of the graceful Baltit Fort, overlooking the Hunza Valley’s Shangri-La-style splendor, it’s impossible not to feel dizzy at the view: an overwhelming collision of millennia of geology and centuries of history.

We are at the heart of Gilgit-Baltistan, in Pakistan’s Northern Areas, or – as legend rules, the Roof of the World. This is an area about 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles) crammed with spectacular mountain ranges and amidst them, secluded pristine valleys and the largest glaciers outside of the Polar region.

The location feels like vertigo. To the north, beyond the Batura Glacier, is the tiny northeast arm of Afghanistan, the legendary Wakhan corridor. A crest of the Hindu Kush separates Wakhan from the regional capital Gilgit. Xinjiang starts on Wakhan’s uppermost tip. Via the upgraded Karakoram highway, it’s only 240 km from Gilgit to the Khunjerab Pass, 4,934 meters high on the official China-Pakistan border.

“I can tell you [a] story when I got here about our military that I don’t even want to talk about,” Trump said. “We do these reports on our military. Some IG goes over there, and he goes over there and they do a report on every single thing. We’re fighting wars and they’re doing [a] report and releasing it to the public. The public means the enemy. Those reports should be private reports.”

The president continued: “Let them do a report, but they should be private reports and be locked up … [Giving the reports] out to the enemy is insane. And I don’t want it to happen anymore, Mr. Secretary. You understand that?”

Webmaster's Commentary:

One has to wonder; if these reports were absolutely glowing, in terms the accomplishments of US troops, fighting on the ground in Afghanistan and elsewhere, would President Trump be as agitated as he appeared to be, Wednesday, on this issue?!?

If anyone still thinks that Donald Trump has some master plan to kill off his Deep State adversaries they should check themselves into therapy. I know withdrawal is hard, but admitting you have a problem is the first step to curing it.

He doesn’t have a plan. He may fight them but it won’t be with any kind of master plan to trap them in some beautiful bit of political judo.

Frankly, Vladimir Putin he is not.

No, Trump is winging things at this point. While he still has the office he’s trying to do some of the things he promised. Doing that may keep him in power for a few more months.

But with his walking back the timetable for pulling troops out of Syria after a visit from Lindsay Graham (R-MIC/AIPAC) should tell you all you need to know about Trump’s willingness to stand up to the pressure he’s under.

Today a rough estimate based on US retail prices suggests that the global heroin market is above the 500 billion dollars mark. This multibillion dollar hike is the result of a significant increase in the volume of heroin transacted Worldwide coupled with a moderate increase in retail prices.

Based on the most recent (UNODC) data (2017) opium production in Afghanistan is of the order of 9000 metric tons, which after processing and transformation is equivalent to approximately 900,000 kg. of pure heroin.

With the surge in heroin addiction since 2001, the retail price of heroin has increased. According to DEA intelligence, one gram of pure heroin was selling in December 2016 in the domestic US market for $902 per gram.

The Heroin trade is colossal: one gram of pure heroin selling at $902 is equivalent to almost a million US dollars a kilo ($902,000) (see table below)

In comments Wednesday, President Trump caused a substantial stir in noting the Soviet Union’s collapse in the wake of their disastrous war in Afghanistan. This caused a flurry of backlash in the media questioning the historical accuracy of the statement.

Trump said that the Soviet Union was bankrupted by the Afghan War, leading an official at the American Enterprise Institute claiming the cost of the war was “an insignificant portion of the Soviet GDP.”

Of course, the Soviets didn’t literally declare bankruptcy at all, but their decisive defeat in Afghanistan was the beginning of the end of their attempts to heavily project power abroad. The not-inconsequential inherent problems in Communism were also a clear factor, but Afghanistan was an eye-opener, and sped up the inevitable collapse.

Donald Trump has been complaining for years about the promiscuous use of American military personnel. Two weeks ago, he did something about it, announcing the withdrawal of 2,000 troops from Syria and 7,000 from Afghanistan.

Republicans joined Democrats in condemning Trump for acting impulsively, sowing "chaos," and precipitating a "national security crisis." But it's the president's overwrought critics who are making choices without thinking, driven by the momentum of military mistakes to support open-ended commitments that make no sense.

The U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war was never authorized by Congress, and its aims were nebulous. A few months ago, Trump's national security adviser was saying American forces would stay in Syria as long as Iran or its proxies are operating there—in other words, indefinitely.

Afghan strike forces overseen by the CIA are operating with little care for preventing civilian casualties, a lengthy New York Times report details Monday, and their brutality has fostered local populations' sympathy for the Taliban.

The CIA-managed teams work "unconstrained by battlefield rules designed to protect civilians, conducting night raids, torture and killings with near impunity," the Times reports, citing Afghan and American officials. "Those abuses are actively pushing people toward the Taliban, the officials say," and as the U.S. military footprint in the country has declined from its 2011 peak of about 100,000, these "strike forces are increasingly the way that a large number of rural Afghans experience the American presence." Unconfirmed reports suggest some raids may even include American operatives.

Webmaster's Commentary:

One has to read this with absolute disgust, contempt, and a really nasty feeling in one's gut, that were war crimes were a competitive sport, the US would be close to winning "the gold", as the country which has committed so many war crimes that it has lost count..if count was ever kept.

And I have to speculate; is this behaviour on the part of the CIA-backed troops actually intended and engineered to make this 18 year old war run longer, so that the various "Alphabet Soup" agencies, which make millions running the poppy trade, creating very strong, cheap, heroin, for "off-shelf operations", won't lose their source of income?!?

Were I a betting woman, I would not bet against it. And no, the photos below haven't been photoshopped:

The commander of US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan has pronounced the prospects of peace with the Taliban while the Pentagon orders the deployment of fresh heavy-lift aviation forces to the region.

“Peace talks (are) out there, regional players pressing for peace, the Taliban talking about peace, the Afghan government is talking about peace,” General Scott Miller, who commands the US-led NATO Resolution Support (RS) mission in Afghanistan, said during a New Year celebration at the RS headquarters in Kabul on Tuesday.

General Miller was apparently referring to Iran whose officials have recently expressed their willingness to help establish peace in Afghanistan.

17 years into the US war in Afghanistan, various administrations have tried myriad different strategies to try to win the war, many of them involving recruiting local groups. While the Pentagon’s various allies have had well-documented problems, they’re nothing compared to the CIA.

Clandestine and playing fast and loose with the rules, the CIA’s own Afghan forces, various bands of local gunmen with some nominal training, have missions to do, and very little in the way of rules of engagement.

Being told to “search for militants” is all but blanket permission to raid and loot random homes. One survivor of such a raid describes the fighters taking him away for questioning. After they took him, they killed his two brothers and sister-in-law, then burned the house to the ground, killing his 3-year-old daughter.

7 years into the US war in Afghanistan, various administrations have tried myriad different strategies to try to win the war, many of them involving recruiting local groups. While the Pentagon’s various allies have had well-documented problems, they’re nothing compared to the CIA.

Clandestine and playing fast and loose with the rules, the CIA’s own Afghan forces, various bands of local gunmen with some nominal training, have missions to do, and very little in the way of rules of engagement.

Being told to “search for militants” is all but blanket permission to raid and loot random homes. One survivor of such a raid describes the fighters taking him away for questioning. After they took him, they killed his two brothers and sister-in-law, then burned the house to the ground, killing his 3-year-old daughter.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I really hate being a citizen of a country which perpetually commits war crimes; reading this story this morning, made me just ill.

And remember; this horrific, nearly 18 years-on war, is not being fought "to defend the American way of life", or honor, or glory; it is being perpetuated so that ultimately, a US-compliant Afghani government will make sure that the pipelines can be leased by the appropriate corporations; make sure that only US-centric corporations can extract Afghanistan's rare earth minerals; and that rights to harvest and distribute opium poppies are done only with US-friendly resources, and that the transactions for all this are conducted with US dollars only.

When Karl Marx made the observation that "All wars are economic" in nature, he was dead spot on; unfortunately, in US history classes, the financial components leading to wars, are seldom legitimately recognised.

Razo Khan woke up suddenly to the sight of assault rifles pointed at his face, and demands that he get out of bed and onto the floor.

Within minutes, the armed raiders had separated the men from the women and children. Then the shooting started.

As Mr. Khan was driven away for questioning, he watched his home go up in flames. Within were the bodies of two of his brothers and of his sister-in-law Khanzari, who was shot three times in the head. Villagers who rushed to the home found the burned body of her 3-year-old daughter, Marina, in a corner of a torched bedroom.

The men who raided the family’s home that March night, in the district of Nader Shah Kot, were members of an Afghan strike force trained and overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency in a parallel mission to the United States military’s, but with looser rules of engagement.

How much worse can America's eighteen year long "forever war" in Afghanistan get? This is not The Onion, but Pakistan's major English language daily, The Dawn citing Pentagon reports: "Eager to persuade Taliban to join the Afghan peace process, the United States is offering them a safety network that includes creating job opportunities for the insurgents."

Taliban in the Shindand district of Herat province, Afghanistan, via AP.
This is part of a new Pentagon peace process plan to "rehabilitate the rebels" and directly engage the notorious jihadist group. In a statement which exposes the utter futility and hypocrisy of the whole "war on terror" post-9/11 narrative, the Pentagon proposal submitted to Congress this week attempts to defend the offer by noting the Taliban will only lay down its weapons “if they have an opportunity to earn enough money to provide for their families.”

NATO-Russian relations have been complicated over the past years as the alliance maintains its course for eastward expansion. The alliance has been also stepping up its military presence in Europe since 2014, using the alleged Russian involvement in the Ukraine crisis and what it describes as general destabilizing activities as a pretext. Moscow has refuted the allegations and warned that such a policy may undermine stability in the region.

In the week before President Donald Trump’s reported decision to abruptly withdraw 7,000 U.S. service members from Afghanistan, the top U.S. commander there all but admitted that the 17-year-old war there will not end with a military victory for the Pentagon.

“This fight will go until a political settlement,” Army Gen. Scott Miller, the commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and the Resolute Support mission there, told CNN when asked whether the Afghan campaign against the Taliban had reached a stalemate. “These are two sides that are fighting against one another, and neither one of them will achieve a military victory at this stage.”

In the same interview, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan John Bass concurred with Miller’s assessment, cautioning that U.S. and Afghan officials will face a complicated diplomatic situation given the Taliban’s aggressive rejection of the current administration in Kabul.

Since months, the US has been working to recast Afghan policy and the withdrawal of 7,000 troops from the total 14,000 is not a sudden decision, but part of a new agenda which is already noticeable in the recent US movements in Afghanistan.

President Trump’s apparently abrupt and insistent decision to remove boots from Syria and Afghanistan that met with reactions, pleas and even resignations from US lawmakers and Generals indicates that the chief decision-making panel is behind the doors to whom Trump only serve as a speaker because unlike common sense, Trump is a nonentity to decide all by himself. The Pentagon before and under James Mattis has defended military presence both in Syria and Afghanistan.

The US has its nine mega bases legalized across Afghanistan and it will keep a few thousand noncombatant soldiers there, as it has already halted or wound down the combat operations.

Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of Rai al-Youm newspaper, referred to the withdrawal of the US forces from Syria and the Arab states' decision to reopen their embassies in Damascus, stressing that 2019 will bring failure for Washington and victory for the resistance front.

"The year 2019 will be the year of victories (for the resistance) and failure for the US plots in the region and return of honor to the regional states," Atwan said in an interview on Friday.

"Syria won because it resisted and the Arab countries are happily reopening their embassies in Damascus>>>

Persistent media reports that President Trump has ordered a drawdown from Afghanistan, with either 5,000 or 7,000 troops returning home, seemed more or less confirmed. Despite this, some of the highest ranking Pentagon officials claim to know nothing about it.

Visiting Camp Dahlke West, Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shrugged off the reports when talking to troops, saying “there’s all kinds of rumors swirling around,” but that the mission was unchanged.

This comes after the commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Scott Miller, said he’d received no orders on any drawdown yet. Miller has followed that up by saying the fighting will continue until there is a political settlement.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Whoa, there; did I just hear the words "political settlement" come out of General Miller's mouth in that last statement, rather than stating that a military victory is imminent?!?

Color me ever so slightly, possibly, hopeful on Afghanistan for the first time in one long time.

The Pentagon has acknowledged Iran’s key role in restoring peace and stability to war-torn Afghanistan, backtracking on Washington’s earlier claims that Tehran supports the local Taliban militant group.

“Iran seeks a stable Afghan government that is responsive to Iranian goals, the elimination of ISIS-K, the removal of the US/NATO presence, and the protection of Iranian concerns, such as water rights and border security,” the US Department of Defense said in a report sent to Congress this week.

The Pentagon also admitted Iran’s influence in Afghanistan, saying that Tehran pursues “a multitrack strategy” of engaging with the Afghan government and seeks to boost bilateral economic ties with Kabul.

“Iranian involvement is most prominent in western, central, and northern Afghanistan, where local Afghans share common history, culture, religion, and language with Iran,” according to the report.

Trump has ordered more than 7,000 US troops to leave Afghanistan, cutting troop levels in half

In what appears to be the first major step toward ending America's involvement in a war fought for nearly two decades, the president has decided to cut the US military presence in Afghanistan in half, The Wall Street Journal reported. There are currently roughly 14,000 American service members in the war-torn country.

The secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, announced on a visit to the Afghan capital of Kabul that Iranian officials have met with the Afghan Taliban.

The announcement came just days after the Taliban attended peace talks in the United Arab Emirates with US officials. Representatives from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan were also present. However, Taliban leaders refused to meet with an official delegation from Afghanistan.

Shamkhani's remarks were printed by Tasnim, an outlet considered close to Iran's military. It isn't clear when or where the talks were held, but they were first reported after Shamkhani noted them in a meeting with government officials in Kabul on Wednesday.

Redeploying US combat troops from column A to column B, from one nation to another, from one war theater to one or more others nearby, leaves Washington’s imperial agenda unchanged – its rage for world dominance, its naked aggression against one nation after another, the highest of high crimes.

That’s the key issue the hue and cry over Trump’s announced troop pullout from Syria and partial withdrawal from Afghanistan left unaddressed.

Republicans and undemocratic Dems are in lockstep over Washington’s aim to rule the world, wanting all nations co-opted as vassal states, allies and adversaries alike, their resources handed to corporate America for looting, their people exploited as serfs.

The beat goes on. Trump’s announcement changed nothing. First, it’s unclear what’s coming in Syria and Afghanistan in the new year – maybe continuation of the status quo or minor tactical changes.

We all had a big shock this week when, seemingly out of the blue, President Trump announced that he was removing US troops from Syria and would draw down half of the remaining US troops in Afghanistan. The president told us the troops were in Syria to fight ISIS and with ISIS nearly gone the Syrians and their allies could finish the job.

All of a sudden the Trump haters who for two years had been telling us that the president was dangerous because he might get us in a war, were telling us that the president is dangerous because he was getting us out of a war! These are the same people who have been complaining about the president’s historic efforts to help move toward peace with North Korea.

Mattis' resignation comes amid news that President Donald Trump has directed the drawdown of 2,000 U.S. forces in Syria, and 7,000 U.S. forces from Afghanistan, a U.S. official confirmed to Military Times, a story first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

This month, in the January/February print issue of the gun and hunting magazine “Recoil," the former contractor security firm Blackwater USA published a full-page ad, in all black with a simple message: “We are coming.”

Is the war in Afghanistan — and possibly elsewhere ? about to be privatized?

Open-ended war continuation has so much momentum in the US that President Trump’s announced pullout from Syria shocked the nation. Followed up the same week with a drawdown from Afghanistan, the mainstream is now completely apoplectic.

On the left and right, comfort with the status quo was virtually uniform. The arguments behind condemning the drawdowns vary depending on the side of the aisle the commenter is on, but the message is uniform opposition to ending a war Congress never authorized in the first place.

Conservative hawks are playing the usual fear-mongering about threats that have been ongoing since 2001, with suggestions that either not being in Syria, or being in Afghanistan but at a lower troop number, will lead to “the next 9/11.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

OF COURSE, they are panicked; imagine how much of their collective portfolios are heavily invested in the military industrial complex, and how these withdrawals will affect their collective portfolios!!

The monied LOVE perpetual war (as long as they, themselves are not threatened), because it fattens their collective bottom lines; this is an absolute no-brainer.

The Arabic-language al-Ma'aloumah news website quoted a well-informed source as disclosing that the US army has built a military airport in Arbat region in Sulaymaniyah province in Iraq's Kurdistan Region.

It went on to say that the US spent almost $8mln to build the base that will solely work on monitoring movement and traffic of the US forces.

It further said that the airport has a very large runway which is suitable for the landing and take off of military and non-military planes, adding that the US army has claimed that the airport has been built for

This month, in the January/February print issue of the gun and hunting magazine “Recoil," the former contractor security firm Blackwater USA published a full-page ad, in all black with a simple message: “We are coming.”

Is the war in Afghanistan — and possibly elsewhere ? about to be privatized?

If Blackwater returns, it would be the return of a private security contractor that was banned from Iraq, but re-branded and never really went away. By 2016 Blackwater had been re-branded several times and was known at the time as Constellis Group, when it was purchased by the Apollo Holdings Group. Reuters reported earlier this year that Apollo had put Constellis up for sale, but in June the sale was put on hold.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Please, Lord, no; I cannot begin to articulate how wrong this is on so many levels.

Afghanistan is not called "the graveyard of empires" for no good reason; the British found that out in their campaign, and so did the old Soviet Union. The only guy who was able to invade and hang on to it (for 3 years, with a series of dynastic marriages and alliances) was Alexander the Great.

And IF President Trump does decide to privatize this war, and Congress signs off on this?!?

What happens to any degree of moral accountability here?!? It will be well and truly flushed, if President Trump decides to do this, and the deaths of infants, children, women, and the medically infirm will soar even far above the levels we are seeing in Yemen today.

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, hard on the heels of yesterday's announced draw-down in Syria. Washington was already in a tizzy about the abrupt manner of the Syria announcement, and seems to be greeting these early reports of Afghanistan in the same way. But ending these two drawn-out, expensive wars is the right thing to do. There's only so much good money, men, and materiel you can throw after bad.

US President Donald Trump has decided to pull about 7,000 troops from Afghanistan, a US official said Friday, but the Afghan presidency brushed off concerns the drawdown would affect security.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the US official told AFP that "roughly half" of the 14,000 US forces in Afghanistan would leave "within the next several months."

The move stunned and dismayed diplomats and officials in Kabul who are intensifying a push to end the 17-year conflict with the Taliban, which already controls vast amounts of territory and is causing "unsustainable" Afghan troop casualties.

In a somewhat cryptic remark in an interview hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu raised the imaginary possibility of the establishment of two or three more "Israels" throughout the Middle East and North Africa, which he said would be located in or near present-day Libya, Afghanistan and Yemen.

At least 20 women and children have been killed in an airstrike conducted by US warplanes in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Kunar, local officials say.

The deadly aerial aggression occurred late on Friday and claimed the lives of eight women and 12 children, Abdul Latif Fazly, a member of the provincial council, said on Saturday, adding that the airstrike also wounded more than 15 other civilians.

Kunar governor Abdul Satar Mirzakwal said an operation by Afghan forces in Sheltan district killed 38 members of the Taliban militant group and a number of terrorists belonging to the Takfiri al-Qaeda terror group, including four foreign nationals, and wounded 12 more.

Police confiscated a 4,648 kilogram haul of opium and several light and heavy firearms in the Southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan, registering a provincial 10 ton narcotics seizure record in the past 12 days.
***
Iran is in the forefront of the fight against drug trafficking and thousands of Iranian forces have been so far martyred to protect the world from the danger of drugs.

General Ghanbari had announced on Monday that 5,461 kilograms of different drugs were captured by police forces during past 10 days

>>>

(*it had to have come from a s**thole city in a US Blue State !whitehorse souce)

Afghan authorities want to provide farmers with an alternative means of income, other than growing opium, by turning to the world’s most expensive spice.

Saffron production has risen to record levels this year in the country, hitting 13 tons, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Official figures showed that saffron cultivation has increased to 6,200 hectares of land in 2018, up 22 percent on last year.

More than 6,600 saffron workers have been trained on production, processing and packaging of the spice this year, according to the government’s statement.

Afghan forces abandoned a remote district in the west of the country, leaving the area to Taliban insurgents. The government had failed to re-supply dozens of troops stationed there, provincial officials said on Wednesday. The Shebkoh district of Farah province, bordering Iran, has been under Taliban siege for months.

Four killed as Afghan intelligence staffers come under attack
Four people are killed when a bomb attack targeted members of Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency in the capital, Kabul.

Six more were wounded after the attacker detonated an explosive load in the Paghman district in western Kabul, which hit a convoy of Afghan forces with the National Directorate for Security (NDS).
***
No group has claimed responsibility for the assault.

Pulling US and NATO forces out of Afghanistan would give terrorist groups the opportunity and ability to rebuild in that country and develop the capability of carrying out more mega-attacks like the ones against the United States on September 11, 2001, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford said.

"Leaving Afghanistan in my judgment would give the terrorist groups the space with which to conduct operations against the American homeland and its allies," Dunford told a meeting at the Washington Post newspaper on Thursday.

***Sputnik News first reported in June that the US military was outpacing every other year on record in terms of bombs dropped on the country in 2018. With data from October now available, that distinction remains

On Wednesday, the Brussels-hosted conference for NATO’s foreign ministers focused on the Afghanistan settlement, Kommersant writes. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted that the situation is not easy and many players, including Moscow, could contribute to hammering out a settlement. Meanwhile, the Afghan peace process fits the current context of Russian-US relations, characterized now by rivalry rather than cooperation, the paper writes. Stoltenberg told Kommersant that the alliance is not against Moscow’s initiative to host a direct inclusive inter-Afghan dialogue, but it’s up to Afghan citizens to have a leading role in the peace process. US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad is currently on a tour of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belgium, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Russia, the paper says.

As the US urgently seeks an exit from its ongoing 17-year war in Afghanistan - the longest war the nation has prosecuted in its 242-year history - for-profit, privately-held mercenary corporations are increasingly taking over, leading officials in Kabul to question their expensive and often deadly presence.

In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, quickly contributing to a boom in the so-called ‘private security' business, a euphemism to describe the use of mercenary soldiers, according to reports.

How much more blood must be spilled in Afghanistan before Washington acknowledges reality and ends the war?

Three more American troops were killed in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb on Tuesday and three others wounded; their names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. These deaths, along with Sgt. Leandro Jasso who was killed in a firefight last Saturday, bring the number of troops killed in Afghanistan this year to thirteen. Unless major changes are made in U.S. strategic policy, they will not be the last to die.

There’s a prevailing maxim, both inside the armed forces and around the Beltway, that goes something like this: “The U.S. can never be militarily defeated in any war,” certainly not by some third world country. Heck, I used to believe that myself. That’s why, in regard to Afghanistan, we’ve been told that while America could lose the war due to political factors (such as the lack of grit among “soft” liberals or defeatists), the military could never and will never lose on the battlefield.

That entire maxim is about to be turned on its head. Get ready, because we’re about to lose this war militarily.

The US is dropping more bombs on Afghanistan in 2018 than it has in any other year on record, new Air Force data shows.

United States Air Forces Central Command has been publishing munitions data regularly since 2006, but comprehensive records are only available on their website dating back to 2009. Second to 2018, 2011 saw the most bombs dropped, according to the available data.

Sputnik News first reported in June that the US military was outpacing every other year on record in terms of bombs dropped on the country in 2018. With data from October now available, that distinction remains.

With three US troops killed in Afghanistan earlier this week, President Trump was pressed on the matter of why, 17+ years in, the US military remains in the country. He told interviewers that “every expert that I have and speak to says if we don’t go there, they’re going to be fighting over here. And I’ve heard it over and over again.”

When Trump announced his escalation of the war last year, he said his first impulse was to pull out, but that the experts had assured him the war was still winnable. In recent months, officials have been very public about trying to convince Trump to stay in the war despite how poorly its going.

Trump’s claims that all the experts he’s hearing are telling him the same thing suggests his administration is limiting his access to dissenters. The war is plainly going disastrously, and it wouldn’t be hard to find people who would tell the president as much.

Webmaster's Commentary:

We continue to fight this horrific war for the following reasons; to control the huge pipelines which chris-cross the country; the rights to develop the rare earth elements in Afghanistan; and to control the opium crops for CIA off the book operations.

And hey, if people (including our military) get killed in the way of making huge profits from all the above, they were simply just "collateral damage" and getting in the way of accomplishing what the Deep State wants to see happen here.

Airstrikes conducted by the US military has killed at least 30 civilians, including children and women, in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand amid a spike in civilian deaths from aerial attacks.

The US-led NATO force in Afghanistan said on Wednesday that American advisers and Afghan government forces called in an airstrike as they came under fire from Taliban militants in a compound in Garmsir district.

"At the time of the strike, the ground force was unaware of any civilians in or around the compound; they only knew that the Taliban was using the building as a fighting position," a force spokeswoman said in a statement.

The blast from a roadside bomb killed three U.S. Servicemen in Afghanistan Tuesday morning, and wounded three others.

“Lt. Ubon Mendie, a spokesman for the U.S. forces, said in a statement that three other service members and one American civilian contractor were injured in the blast. The wounded were evacuated and were being provided medical care, Mendie said,” according to USA Today.

The Taliban – the same one that we have been fighting since 2001 – claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened in the Ghazni province. The identities of the soldiers remain unknown.

As the UN reports, year by year, a dramatic increase on civilians killings in Afghanistan, and the International Criminal Court does not advance in investigating such crimes by the local governments, terrorists and the US-led forces, Friba, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan's representative, states in the following interview with Pravda.ru that the US has opressed and destroyed to dominate her country. "The lives of Afghans has no value for the US," Friba says. "Such disproportionate use of force can only be titled as intentional attacks on civilian populations." Edu Montesanti: As UNAMA recently issued reports on the dramatic increase of civilians deaths in Afghanistan, which does not change year by year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is considering to investigate crimes committed in Afghanistan by the local government, the Taliban and other anti-government forces, and the US-led forces.

n rare comments on peace talks in Afghanistan, President Trump reported that “very strong” negotiations are ongoing in the country. He said the people of Afghanistan “are tired of fighting,” and the goal is to end the war.

That said, Trump appeared to try to downplay the effort, saying that the negotiations “probably” are not going to be successful, but “who knows?” He did not elaborate further. Special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has expressed hopes for a peace deal by April of next year, though the Taliban said no agreements are yet in place.

Less important than what President Trump said was that he addressed the matter at all. The Afghan War has tended not to be a popular topic for him to address. This may suggest a growing interest within the administration to tackle the protracted war.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Why does this so much remind me of the phrase, "Ir you are getting chased, get to the front of the mob, and make it look like you are leading a parade!"?!?